Flora, Fauna and Merryweather
'Flora, Fauna and Merryweather '(known collectively as the Three Good Fairies) are major characters in Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty. In the film, Flora is voiced by Verna Felton, Fauna is voiced by Barbara Jo Allen, and Merryweather is voiced by Barbara Luddy. Background The three good fairies are clothed in medieval-styled dresses with a particular color predominating. In addition to the dresses, the outfits are complimented with matching capes and pointy hats secured to their heads with colored veils. Flora's dress is predominantly red with her petticoat, cape clasp cuffs and hat veil a dark yellow. She appears to be the leader of the group, and based on her dialogue in the film, she seems to deal heavily with flowers and nature; her favorite color is pink. Fauna's outfit is a dark green with accents in a lighter shade of green and she appears to be second-in-command. Despite her tendency towards absentmindedness and obliviousness, she is the quieter and the more introspective than the other two fairies, and often functions as a peacemaker between Flora and Merryweather. Merryweather is dressed in shades of blue, her favorite color, and is distinguished from the others by her diminutive stature. She is feisty, yet pessimistic, resourceful and often challenges Flora's leadership. As a group they all have powerful magical abilities, channeled by their wands. They can do many things such as shrinking in size, fly, bring inanimate objects to life, and putting people to sleep. Their wings allow them to fly and they maneuver adroitly through the air. Despite their claims that they could only do good things with their magic, they were not above using their powers in morally ambiguous ways: Flora gifted a sword and shield to Prince Phillip (which could be interpreted as promoting violence) while Merryweather turned Diablo into stone. They were also not above using magic for their own convenience and personal desires, as demonstrated through their preparations of gifts for Aurora's 16th birthday party, and in the pink/blue color war between Flora and Merryweather. Though their magic was stated to be inferior to Maleficent's in raw power, when they work together they were capable of granting people extremely powerful weapons to be used in the cause of righteousness. Such weapons could triumph over the darkest of evil. When they gave Prince Phillip the '''Shield of Virtue and the Sword of Truth (possible parodies of the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit from the Bible, seeing as how their names are almost synonyms John 14:6) for the final fight with Maleficent the sword (boosted by the fairies' combined magic and Flora's incantation) was so empowered it could destroy Maleficent and her evil with one well-aimed blow. Physical Appearance The three fairies dress very much alike in long medieval style dresses and pointy hats reminiscent of the traditional witches' hat. Flora's signature color is red, but her favorite color is pink. Fauna and Merryweather's favorite and signature colors are green and blue, respectively. Both Flora and Fauna's eyes are brown while Merryweather's eyes are blue. Flora's hair is gray and Fauna's hair is brownish-gray and they wear it swept back and up into a pompadour and a bun. Merryweather's hair is black and she also wears it in a bun, but her veil, which covers the entire back of her head makes it hard to see exactly how the hair is styled. This suggests that Merryweather is younger than both Flora and Fauna. Powers and Abilities As members of the Fair Folk, the three fairies function as forces of good and use their magic in its service. They possess various magical abilities that seem to be channeled solely through their wands, and hence they were practically powerless without them. Their first notable acts of magic were the blessings they gave to the baby Princess Aurora. Flora blessed the child with the Gift of Beauty, while Fauna gave the child the Gift of Song. Before Merryweather could give the child her gift, Maleficent appeared and invoked a curse that would cause the princess to die upon pricking her finger on the spindle of spinning wheel. While Merryweather did not have the power to break the curse, she was able to weaken it and provide a means for the curse to be broken. Instead of dying, Aurora would instead fall into a deep sleep from which only True Love's Kiss would awaken her, breaking the spell. Flora, while brainstorming ideas to keep the princess safe, stated she could turn Aurora into a flower reasoning that as flowers have no fingers Aurora could not prick hers on a spinning wheel or anything else. Merryweather derailed that course of action by pointing out that it would work fine until Maleficent sends a frost. The fairies choose instead to disguise themselves as humans by dressing as peasants, hiding their wings and swearing off magic for the duration. It was only during their preparations for Aurora's 16th birthday did they start using magic again: bringing inanimate objects to life to do their bidding, moving objects without touching them (telekinesis), manipulate colors (Flora and Merryweather changing the birthday gown from pink to blue and back again), conjuring a crown out of thin air for Aurora to wear as a Princess (conjuration), making objects disappear, and lighting the tips of their wands to provide light. After Aurora had pricked her finger and fallen into the enchanted sleep, they cast a spell to put the entire kingdom into a similar sleep that will only end when she awakened. In their quest to rescue Phillip and escort him to Aurora, they again displayed how powerful their magic could truly be: using their wands as cutting torches to free him of his shackles and open the locked door of his cell, conjuring holy weapons (the Shield of Virtue and Sword of Truth), transforming objects (boulders into bubbles, arrows into flowers, burning oil into a rainbow, transformation), and turning living creatures to stone, as Merryweather did to Diablo in an effort to prevent the raven from alerting Maleficent. The most powerful feat they performed was, apparently, blessing the Sword of Truth so that it could kill Maleficent with one well-aimed blow.